Playbooks¶
A Playbook tells the agent what to accomplish in one kind of situation and how to approach it. The concept is covered in The Agent Definition; this guide is about authoring them well. Playbooks are edited at Settings · Playbooks.
The parts of a Playbook¶
| Field | What it does |
|---|---|
| Name | The label you and the agent use for it. The agent hands off between Playbooks by name. |
| Description | Operator-facing summary shown in lists. Not read by the agent. |
| When to use | The activation context. The agent reads every Playbook's when-to-use on every turn to recognize which one fits the moment. |
| Body | The agent-facing instructions for operating while this Playbook is active. |
| Default | Marks the Playbook the agent starts in and returns to. Exactly one Playbook is the default. |
| Available for outreach | Offers the Playbook in the Send outreach dialog, so an operator can start a conversation directly in it. An outreach Playbook can name its own Opening message (a Message Template sent verbatim before the agent composes anything). |
| Default for outreach | Shown once a Playbook is available for outreach: preselected in the Send outreach dialog, and used when an outreach send does not pick a Playbook (API-initiated sends, for example). At most one Playbook is the outreach default. |
| Available in regular conversations | Shown once a Playbook is available for outreach, and off by default: an outreach-only Playbook is never switched into mid-conversation — it runs only when an outreach send selects it. The default Playbook cannot be made outreach-only. |
| Procedures | Named instruction blocks the Playbook carries — exact task mechanics, read only while this Playbook is active. A capability's actions are offered when a procedure calls for them. |
| References | Message Templates this Playbook deploys in its situations. |
Writing a good when-to-use¶
The when-to-use is the most consequential sentence in the Playbook: it is how the agent decides where a conversation goes. Write it as the condition, not the content:
- "When the lead has asked to talk to a person, see times, book a demo, or otherwise indicates readiness to schedule."
- "When the user is asking about products, pricing, or capabilities."
Two Playbooks with overlapping when-to-use descriptions compete, and the agent may bounce between them. The console flags pairs that loop repeatedly, showing both descriptions side by side so you can sharpen the boundary. If you see routing mistakes in conversations, the fix is almost always in a when-to-use, not in a body.
Writing the body¶
The body is instructions to the agent for one phase of the conversation. What works:
- State the goal of the phase first, then the approach. The agent performs better when it knows what the Playbook is for.
- Say what to avoid as well as what to do. A short "What to avoid" list prevents the most common failure modes ("Don't re-qualify the lead — discovery already happened").
- Describe the exit. You don't author exit rules — the agent leaves when another Playbook fits — but if the phase should wrap up a specific way, say so in the body ("once the call is booked, confirm the details and return to general help").
- Keep voice out of it. Tone belongs in Personality; hard limits belong in Guardrails. The body is about this situation.
Reviewed, exact-wording messages (a booking confirmation, a legal notice) should not be pasted into the body. Put them in Message Templates and reference them, so the copy renders the same way every time.
The Default Playbook¶
The default is the agent's home: the opening of a conversation, the "what does this person want?" phase, and where the agent returns when a task completes. Keep it general. It doesn't need to mention the other Playbooks — the agent sees every Playbook's when-to-use at all times and routes on its own.
Starting from the catalog¶
The Playbooks list can import entries from the Anychat catalog (the Schedule Sales Call Playbook, Escalate to Human, and others). An imported Playbook is copied onto your agent; edit it freely. The copy keeps a link to its catalog origin, so when Anychat publishes a new version the console shows an Update to latest option with a preview of what changed. Adopting the update is your choice, and if you've edited the copy the console marks it as diverged rather than silently overwriting your work.
Procedures¶
A Playbook can carry procedures — named, step-by-step instruction blocks for exact mechanics (proposing appointment times, confirming a slot). They edit inline in the Playbook editor, beneath the body, and the agent reads them only while the Playbook is active. Catalog Playbooks arrive with their procedures included. When the template your agent was created from publishes a new version, the agent's Definition page offers a review: every changed section, including Playbooks and their procedures, appears in a merge view where you take the template's change or keep yours. Keep judgment and phase choreography in the body; keep exact mechanics in a procedure.